The Big Four and the Quest for the First Stone
by aavonlea
Summary: Never has Hogwarts seen so many extraordinary students. Perhaps it never will again. But it was certain that these four were meant for a great purpose, and even more certain was the fact that they'd have many adventures while in the school. Jack, Hiccup, Merida, and Rapunzel just have to survive their education long enough to have those adventures.


**(A/N) *Picks up megaphone* *drill sergeant voice* Okay you maggots, listen up! This here is the prologue for my Big Four Hogwarts AU I'm attempting. I will only continue writing if people show sufficient interest in this prologue. I will still be awhile before any more updates occur. No more updates may occur at all. I am notorious for not finishing my longer stories. You have been warned. Read at you own risk.**

***Puts down megaphone***

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**Prologue**

Albus Dumbledore reflected that every student who came into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was exceptional. All of them had extraordinary magical gifts or backgrounds or both. He also reflected that some years had exceptionally extraordinary students, unique to anyone else coming to the school. This year, he knew, would be one of those years, except there was a bit of a twist. Never before had so many students from such uniquely extraordinary backgrounds been accepted to Hogwarts. He reflected that, perhaps, there never would be so many ever again.

"Ah, the reflections one makes in the days before a well-anticipated event," he said with a curious glint sparkling across his half-moon spectacles, reaching a hand out to stroke the brilliant plumage of the phoenix perched beside where he stood. "Four students, Fawkes. Four," he said to the phoenix. "This may well mark the beginning of a particularly fantastic - and, if I might also say, amusing - era of Hogwarts."

And each of the four had been… well, they had been recent developments. He had only just received word of the whereabouts of a most curious girl. Rapunzel Corona. What was unusual about her was that she and her mother had lived secluded within the deep forests of her home, dwelling within a tall tower. What interested Albus Dumbledore more than the curious living arrangement though was that the girl's powers were rather unusually well-developed for an eleven-year-old who seemed to know nothing of her abilities. The mother was not a witch and Albus Dumbledore had no knowledge of whether the girl's father was magic or not.

Then there was the daughter of the nobleman in the Highlands. Despite being very high in status, the family was known for living according to their traditional ways. It was, Albus thought, a place where time did not seem to matter. The use of a stone castle for a home and horses for transportation and swords and bows and arrows for weapons had not gone, as they say, "out of style" in the slightest. It had only recently come to his attention that the girl in the family, Merida DunBroch, was magical, but he was delighted for it. He could already imagine the students thinking up tales of the princess soon to be coming.

And then the most unique case of them all. The Viking village and the son of their chief. If the DunBroch castle went almost unaffected by time, then the Vikings of Berk were completely oblivious that the rest of the world had left the Dark Ages. Albus had, of course, heard of such a place, an island off the coast of Norway, but this was the first time he'd heard the name of it. He had also guessed that the village that never aged and other places like it would be filled with magic. Wizard settlements often stuck to traditional habits and old ways, as wizards themselves were quite reluctant to change. He had been almost surprised, and he usually guessed correctly so he was rarely ever surprised, that all the Vikings were Muggles. The chieftain's son, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, was the only wizard Berk had ever had. As the boy lived in close proximity to Durmstrang Institute - or so Albus guessed, not knowing the exact whereabouts of the school - the boy should have been set to go to that far northern magic academy.

That was, until he received a letter about the boy at the beginning of July from a woman named Gothi, who claimed to live in the same village as Hiccup. She explained that she had known a witch during some years she spent on the mainland when she was younger, and recognized the signs of magic in the boy. She had requested for the boy a place in Hogwarts instead of Durmstrang, and Albus was only too pleased to write back and say he would be delighted to have one of the last Vikings be taught at his school.

The case that interested him most of all, however, was that of the boy from America, Jackson Overland. Any other would look at the boy and wonder why, but Dumbledore knew that although he seemed a perfectly ordinary young wizard, his case was the most intriguing of all. As Albus Dumbledore understood it, the boy's father, a wizard celebrated for his work in how magic manifests in supernatural creatures, had been born in England but lived the last years of his life in America, where he raised a family. He had made sure his son and daughter - should they inherit his powers - were registered to be students at Hogwarts, where he had received his own education. Albus had only found out recently that this would be the case, as he had assumed anyone in the United States would be enrolled in the American school. Dumbledore did not know the circumstances of the father's death but knew that he had failed to tell his family what he was before his passing. Such circumstances were not unheard of, and in fact, they were even common. Witches and wizards fearing to tell their Muggle spouses they were magic.

This was not what intrigued Dumbledore, though. Like with Rapunzel Corona, Jackson Overland's powers were not only very well-developed, but he also had an incredible amount of control over these powers for one so young. And his abilities were… well, they were rather unusual. Only a week before the boy received his letter of acceptance to Hogwarts, he had caused an accident involving an avalanche - an avalanche at the beginning of summer. The American magical authorities had a grand time with that one. And hardly a month before that, he gave the students of his school a snow day. It was rather difficult for the magical authorities to find a way to explain away a snow day in the middle of May. It seemed that Mr. Overland had a real knack for weather magic. Indeed, there had been hardly any incidents that did not involve snow or ice or wind - and there had been a lot of incidents over the years.

"Ah, well. It is not unusual for a child to test out their abilities, even if they don't know it's magic," Albus Dumbledore said, stroking the phoenix once more.

One thing was for sure, Albus thought. One or more of these children would inevitably become close to each other. It was, Albus reflected, how it always turned out.

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(A/N) Also, for any chance of future updates, don't forget to review!


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